SEE images in films

posted by sabine Ballata on 2005/08/04 22:56

[ SEE images in films ]

Soon to come and something to look forward to: the first joint cultural project of all former Yugoslav republics, a movie with the title “Karaula” or “The Border Post”. Here the description of the project from UNMIK-radio:


Atmosphere

It is the year 1987. A border post commander on the Yugoslav-Albanian frontier gets syphilis and decides to hide his sickness. He makes up that Albanians attacked Yugoslavia and gets the whole battalion into war psychosis. No one knows that the real war is just about to happen.


This is the story told in the movie “Karaula” or the “The Border Post”, the first joint cultural project of all former Yugoslav republics.
The film crew is currently shooting in national park Galicica at Lake Ohrid in Macedonia, to make what they describe as a funny AND sad story about last days of Yugoslavia.



The movie is based on a novel by young Croatian author Ante Tomic called “Nothing could surprise us”, a quote used by the former Yugoslav army as its slogan. Fellow citizen and director Rajko Grlic decided to make a film based on the book.

Actuality No. 1 Politicians are not the only ones who made the war; Milosevic and Tudjman are not the only ones. They pulled the trigger but the people had to be ready to carry it on. When one is making a movie, one is telling the story about concrete people and a concrete situation and I’m very interested in that moment in which the war came into people’s minds.


The story attracted producers starting from Vardar up to Triglav. But also Austrian, British and French producers jumped in to bring together a budget of over 2 millions euros to make the movie. The first amount came from the Council of Europe and its film foundation “Euroimage”. The main producer is Ademir Kenovic from Bosnian company “Refresh Production”. For UNMIK on Air, he explains his reasons for getting into this movie.



Actuality No. 2 First of all the story itself that in an astonishing way - at the same time in a somber and a witty way, shows what was happening before all those horrors in ‘92. Second reason is my friendship with Grlic and my conviction that this amazing story could be a very good movie.



Casting lasted for two years but Rajko Grlic wanted to get the best possible team. And he did: young Toni Gojanovic, Sergej Trifunovic, Bogdan Diklic, Verica Nedeska Trajkova and Emir Hadzihafizbegovic who talks for our programme.


Actuality No. 3 I think that one extra ordinary group of people from former Yugoslavia is gathered. It is not, as some people often say, YU nostalgia. Simply, I think one cannot put embargo on two things, on memories and professionalism. When I say memory, I can’t delay some good things that happened to me in the country called Yugoslavia.


Zoran Cvijanovic, famous Belgrade actor, now in the role of the producer doesn’t hide his excitement with this project. If Scandinavian countries are leaders in author movies today, why ex Yugoslavian team couldn’t make it even better, says Cvijanovic for UNMIK on Air.


Actuality No. 4 We had an experienced team. We were like 11 players in football. When the country fell apart we all created some national teams but we all had 6 or 7 players, we didn’t fulfill the basic requirements for the football team to have 11 players. Now, something exciting is happening, the fact that we reestablished that film team.


Twenty three year old Toni Gojinovic from the Adriatic town of Sibenik got the chance of a lifetime: he gets to play the main part in the movie.



Actuality No. 5 It is a great experience for me to work with Rajko and my colleagues Sergej, Emir, Verica, Bogdan. They are big actors and big professionals in this job. It is a great honor for me to play with them. Those are people that come from different environments and that come from different acting schools.


At the very end also a company from Kosovo - ‘Concordia production’ got involved as associate producer. Venkat Rao Biyyala, UNMIK’s officer with the Ministry of Culture got them in touch.


Actuality No. 6 I gave this idea to a couple of people who are in the film industry but in the private sector and one of them Concordia film entered in the agreement with Ademir as their associate producer. I hope this will grow into a bigger practice in Kosovo to revive the film in Kosovo.


Back announce: In the first half of next year “Karaula” is supposed to be released. And maybe this will happen at the famous Pula film festival.


Other links related to the film:

www.balkanmedia.com

www.novamakedonija.com


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imagineSEE

The imagineSEE-weblog is a space about ideas, images, (re)inventions and (re)constructions of and about the Balkans, from outside and within SEE.

Any comments or suggestions are welcomed and appreciated, please use "Reply" at the end of each posting or post directly to Sabine Ballata.

This is a part of the collage 'The Black File' by Croatian artist Sanja Ivekovic, who will be represented at documenta 12 (16/6-23/9) in Kassel this year.

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